OPEN

On the same day as Campaign’s article, PR Week also took a much more fleeting look (subscription required) at blogging yesterday.

I think the sub-editor maybe got  a bit over-excited at the mention of
blogs as the headline reads "Blogging revolution will force change in
PR". I’d love to read the article that goes with that headline.

The actual piece is an opinion column by editor-in-chief Kate Nicholas reporting on a debate titled "Business Comment better than Business News?" by Julia Hobsbawm’s outfit Editorial Intelligence.

Ms Nicholas reports on the debate among the select "grandees" including Patience Wheatcroft and Liam Halligan and mentions that there was some discussion of blogging. Her conclusion?:

Now
any attempt at crystal-ball gazing can backfire terribly, but I’d be mightily
surprised if, as one doomsayer in the debate suggested, the rise of the blogger
spells the end for PROs. It is more likely that we’ll see a turn to the roots
of PR when public relations professionals actually dealt with the public, even
if these days it’s in a virtual environment. And if this is the case,
40-something journos might have to start thinking of an alternative second
career option.

PR Week also carries a Diary piece (you can’t link to it unfortunately) about the story that’s been doing the rounds on blogs about a US senator’s staffers amending his profile on Wikipedia.

Serious coverage of the new medium has been a staple of its American
sister title for some time, which reflects the greater importance in
the US of the new medium.

I hope that PR Week in the UK will follow the US example soon. There is a real opportunity for PR to take the lead in engaging with social media for brand and marketing communications and its trade media needs to get behind that, be its cheerleader, whatever the appropriate analogy is.